Scadrial Era 1 Time is Weird + steps toward a solution

[cometaryorbit]

Ok, this all got started when I looked at Vin's coppermind page and noticed that it said " Born: 1005 FE Died: 1025 FE".

I thought "hmm, wasn't Vin supposed to be 21 when she died? This doesn't look right"

That rapidly opened a gigantic can of worms.

I looked at the reference for her death year, but it just pointed to the HoA chapter where she dies. Doesn't say where 1025 comes from.

So I started to try to work it out myself.

FE Calendar: Assumption 1

We know the Well takes 1024 years to refill. It fully refills near the end of WoA, so this must be 1024 years after TLR's Ascension.

The new Final Empire map is dated 1021, and it still calls the nation "the Final Empire" and still has Tremredare as a Dominance capital. So this is a pre TLR death map,  which supports the FE Calendar beginning with TLR's Ascension if 1021 is around the time of book 1.

If Year 1 of the FE Calendar began exactly 1024 years before the Well refills, then WoA ends at the beginning of Year 1025.

Working forwards from that, "one year has passed" between end of WoA and beginning of HoA. So HoA should start early in 1026. The book covers about a year, so Vin's death should be either very late in 1026 or early in 1027.

Working backwards from that, "one year has passed" between TFE and WoA, and each book covers about a year*. So WoA begins early in 1024, and then TFE ends early in 1023 probably. TFE covers more than a year, so it probably begins in 1021 and the new map is as of the beginning of the book. That's consistent, so this might actually be correct.

1021 (middle to late?): TFE begins. Vin is recruited from Camon's crew by Kelsier.

1022: Most of TFE's events

1023 (very early?): End of TFE - Vin kills TLR, Elend is declared king.

1024: Most of the events of WoA. The Siege of Luthadel.

1025 (very beginning): The very end of WoA - Ruin escapes the Well.

1026: most if not all of the events of HoA

1026 (very end) or 1027 (early): the very end of HoA. Vin and Ati die, Sazed Ascends.

One Slight Problem

Vin's age. Vin is 21 when she dies, but according to the WoA annotations 18 when she marries Elend. But not much time passes between the wedding and the end of WoA - just their short journey outside Luthadel, Vin's high-speed return, the final battle, and Vin going to the Well.

So a simple "1 year between books + 1 year for HoA" won't work, because Vin needs to have 3 birthdays in that time. And Vin is 21 by the middle of HoA, so it can't be as simple as her turning 19 immediately after the wedding and turning 21 immediately before her death.

Though given that she was 17 at the end of TFE, she probably *is* not far from her 19th birthday when she gets married. But that's not enough by itself to make the time work out. Either "one year has passed" between books has to be somewhat more than one year, or the early chapters of HoA have to cover at least a full year.

*BUT* ...Chaos pointed out on the Discord when I brought this up that the annotation saying Vin is 18 at her wedding is probably simply wrong, because it's incompatible with book evidence which takes priority.

In that case, it really is one year between books, and the above timeline still holds.

Year Zero

Another problem with the above analysis is that theoretically TLR could have started the FE Calendar with Year 0, not Year 1. I find this unlikely, but it's possible. In which case all the years should be reduced by one; the Well refilling begins Year 1024 not 1025.

We also don't know when their calendar puts New Year's Day. If it wasn't defined by TLR taking the power, then Year 1 might not have been a full 365 days, and the Well might refill during 1025 rather than starting 1025.

Still, Era 1 Scadrial's calendar was not synchronized with the seasons, so New Year's probably isn't defined seasonally. So starting with the Well is likely the best assumption.

So version 2 under the assumption that they started with year zero:

FE Calendar: Assumption 2

1020 (middle to late?): TFE begins. Vin is recruited from Camon's crew by Kelsier.

1021: Most of TFE's events

1022 (very early?): End of TFE - Vin kills TLR, Elend is declared king.

1023: Most of the events of WoA. The Siege of Luthadel.

1024 (very beginning): The very end of WoA - Ruin escapes the Well.

1025: most if not all of the events of HoA

1025 (very end) or 1026 (early): the very end of HoA. Vin and Ati die, Sazed Ascends.

Digression: Scadrial Seasons are Broken (and we should just ignore them)

If Scadrial's Era 1 orbit is half the distance from the sun of its Era 2 Earthlike orbit (0.5 AU) it's astronomical year will only be about 120 days, so each season will be about a month long. If it's 0.6 AU the astronomical year will be ~170 days and seasons will be about 42-43 days long. This clearly doesn't fit what we see in the books, especially WoA.

(Realistically, given seasonal lag and the effects of the ash, I think a year this short would make seasons barely noticeable, probably not distinct enough to name.)

So evidence from seasonal changes in the books is probably not useful.

At this point I brought the issue with the dates up on the Discord coppermind channel. Chaos pointed out that the WoA annotation should probably be ignored, and Stargazer confirmed that Vin is 15 at the beginning of TFE but 17 by Chapter 22, 20 in HoA chapter 3 but 21 by HoA chapter 30.

Chaos also pointed out that the leatherbounds might have changed things.

Not really a conclusion

I think assumption 1 is likely better because it makes the 1021 map as of the beginning of book 1, but who knows.

Help Please

Does anyone with the leather-bounds know if any of this was changed for the leatherbounds? Especially Vin being 17 in TFE ch22, 20 in HoA ch3, and 21 in HoA ch30?

Edited January 5, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[Treamayne]

On 1/5/2023 at 4:02 PM, cometaryorbit said:

So HoA should start early in 1026. The book covers about a year,

HoA takes, approximately, three months.

BLUF:

TFE takes place over about 16-18 months, more than 1 year passes (TFE ending in late summer/early autumn - WoA starting in mid-to-late autumn), WoA covers about four-to-six months (ending in late winter), another 15 months or so pass, then HoA starts in early-spring and takes only two or three months and ends late-spring/early summer.

I made a timeline of just the books here. I went by a combination of the stated time passing and seasonal clues, and lay out all of the references in the referenced thread. If  Rashek's Ascension was year 0 - which puts the Well's refill at the end of Year 1023 - allowing 18months after that event for Vin's death to have occurred 1025PC.

On 1/5/2023 at 4:02 PM, cometaryorbit said:

the Well refilling begins Year 1024 not 1025.

I think the Well refills during the entire 1024 years - otherwise it would not have already had enough power to tie Kelsier's CS to the Cognitive Realm. It's just that it becomes full-enough to be sensed during the last year and is ready to be tapped when complete.

On 1/5/2023 at 4:02 PM, cometaryorbit said:

Either "one year has passed" between books has to be somewhat more than one year,

This is definitely the case for both both time breaks.

TFE ends in Summer, WoA starts late Autumn - so at least a few months over a year. Likewise WoA ends late Winter and HoA starts early Spring.

On 1/5/2023 at 4:02 PM, cometaryorbit said:

If Scadrial's Era 1 orbit is half the distance from the sun of its Era 2 Earthlike orbit (0.5 AU) it's astronomical year will only be about 120 days, so each season will be about a month long. If it's 0.6 AU the astronomical year will be ~170 days and seasons will be about 42-43 days long. This clearly doesn't fit what we see in the books, especially WoA.

I think the artist's rendition from Arcanum Unbounded is just that - artistic license. There is no way Scadrial's FE Orbit is less than .9 AU. For example, lets look at Venus (from Wikipedia):

Quote

Orbital characteristics

Aphelion----------0.728213 AU
Perihelion--------0.718440 AU
Eccentricity------0.006772
Orbital period---224.701 d

Surface temp.     mean    

Kelvin---------------737 K     
Celsius-------------464 °C     
Fahrenheit---------867 °F    

No amount of Ashfall is going to make up for those temperatures (at .7AU). Sure, some of that is atmosphere, but you still are way above any compensatory temperatures.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Treamayne
Formatting

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

No amount of Ashfall is going to make up for those temperatures (at .7AU). Sure, some of that is atmosphere, but you still are way above any compensatory temperatures.

Venus temperature is due to runaway greenhouse effect of its atmosphere. It's 96% CO2 that traps heat inside. And it's around 100 times denser than Earth's atmosphere. Venus might have been in Sun's habitable zone in the past, when Sun was dimmer, but right now if Earth was in Venus orbit, the oceans would boil.

[Treamayne]

57 minutes ago, alder24 said:

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

On 1/5/2023 at 4:02 PM, cometaryorbit said:

If Scadrial's Era 1 orbit is half the distance from the sun of its Era 2 Earthlike orbit (0.5 AU) it's astronomical year will only be about 120 days, so each season will be about a month long. If it's 0.6 AU the astronomical year will be ~170 days and seasons will be about 42-43 days long. 

No amount of Ashfall is going to make up for those temperatures (at .7AU). Sure, some of that is atmosphere, but you still are way above any compensatory temperatures.

Venus temperature is due to runaway greenhouse effect of its atmosphere. It's 96% CO2 that traps heat inside. And it's around 100 times denser than Earth's atmosphere. Venus might have been in Sun's habitable zone in the past, when Sun was dimmer, but right now if Earth was in Venus orbit, the oceans would boil.

Exactly my point - even discounting atmospheric effect, at .6AU a planet is no longer in the goldilocks zone. The Ashmounts would not have been able to compensate that much. This implies that the picture in Arcanum Unbounded was exaggerated for artistic effect, which implies that attempting any temporal calculations based on an orbit period that matches the artwork is dubious at best. 

[alder24]

31 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Exactly my point - even discounting atmospheric effect, at .6AU a planet is no longer in the goldilocks zone. The Ashmounts would not have been able to compensate that much. This implies that the picture in Arcanum Unbounded was exaggerated for artistic effect, which implies that attempting any temporal calculations based on an orbit period that matches the artwork is dubious at best. 

Do we know Scadrial's sun luminocity? If it's lower than Our Sun, it might make Ashmounts just barely saving the planet.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Do we know Scadrial's sun luminosity? If it's lower than Our Sun, it might make Ashmounts just barely saving the planet.

AFAIK, the closest we get is the admission that the Scadrial system is closest of all story-relevant Cosmere worlds to Earth. So, in the absence of contradictory data, we should expect that the Pre-Rashek/Post Catacendre orbit is 1AU around a G2V class star of approximately 4.8 magnitude.

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

AFAIK, the closest we get is the admission that the Scadrial system is closest of all story-relevant Cosmere worlds to Earth. So, in the absence of contradictory data, we should expect that the Pre-Rashek/Post Catacendre orbit is 1AU around a G2V class star of approximately 4.8 magnitude.

The simplest answer is, like you said, Scadrial system art is just artistic version, not to scale. Look at the size of the sun, and the distance between it and Scadrial - 1AU of new orbit there is twice the diameter of the sun. Definitely not to scale. The orbit change was drastic enough to heat up surface of the planet, but not to boil its oceans away. Ashmounts were only on northern hemisphere, within Final Empire, not on southern, as Malwish did adapt to much higher temperatures in 1000 years. So planet was still in habitable zone, but close to boiling point of water, and did not provide great conditions for humans to live in. Over time, without ash, it might turn into Venus-like conditions via runaway greenhouse effect, as water vapor is a greenhouse gas. But not in 1000 years. 

With my post I just wanted to point out that reason that Venus is so hot, is mostly due to its atmosphere, not "some of it". Some plans of terraforming Venus, with Earth-like atmosphere, and without changing its rotation speed, can result in maximum temperature of around 35 °C. But that's plans of terraforming.

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah, @alder24 is right - Goldilocks zone is not really relevant here, because 1024 years is nothing on an astronomical time scale.

Venus's extreme temperature is essentially *all* due to its atmosphere, yes. If Venus had Earth's atmosphere, its average surface temperature would be in the 90s F, so its polar regions would be quite habitable. Era 1 Scadrial is worse off than that - ash shielding antigreenhouse effect, or something else special in the South, is needed to keep even small regions habitable.

The issue is that an Earthlike atmosphere/ocean system isn't stable at Venus distance from the Sun. But Era 1 Scadrial doesn't have to be *stable* because it doesn't last over geological/astronomical time scales.

The intensity of the sunlight at the end of HoA is quite extreme. More than Venus distance intensity, I'd think - 2x sun intensity won't burst living trees into flame in a few hours. (Especially as Luthadel is at a rather high latitude - 2x Earth intensity there is probably not much more than equatorial noon on Earth.) Even if Vin pushing the planet had changed the axial tilt, which is likely, I think that's more than double the max intensity you can get on Earth. Definitely outside the habitable zone.

Edited January 9, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

If Venus had Earth's atmosphere, its average surface temperature would be in the 90s F,

From which source do you get this figure? 

Just based on distance from the sun, and discounting the atmosphere entirely, it would have a surface tempurature of ~200 degress in sunlight (based on "Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance" where Mercury's averge daylight surface temperature is 427 °C; 800 °F in equatorial regions). 

While I concur that the trees bursting aflame skew the perception, I doubt that raw temperature is the only factor (since they were also "modified" by Rashek to live in the low radiation environment provided by the ashmounts). Full Spectrum light + raw temperature + possible dehydration of plant tissues would all be factors in that occurance. 

[cometaryorbit]

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Just based on distance from the sun, and discounting the atmosphere entirely, it would have a surface tempurature of ~200 degress in sunlight (based on "Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance" where Mercury's averge daylight surface temperature is 427 °C; 800 °F in equatorial regions).

Doesn't work that way, for two reasons:

200 F isn't 25% of 800 F; that kind of calculation needs absolute temperature.

More importantly, Mercury has super long day length and no atmosphere/ocean to distribute heat. One would need to compare *average* temperatures, and Mercury's average temp is nowhere near 800 F (the night side is very cold). The Moon has the same solar input Earth does (before atmospheric effects) and it has dayside temperatures hotter than boiling (something like 250 F).

I will have to see if I can find where I saw the 93 F number.

[alder24]

48 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Just based on distance from the sun, and discounting the atmosphere entirely, it would have a surface tempurature of ~200 degress in sunlight (based on "Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance" where Mercury's averge daylight surface temperature is 427 °C; 800 °F in equatorial regions).

Mercury doesn't have atmosphere, and around 1/3 of Sun's heat is reflected back to space by Earth's atmosphere (while Venus is like 70% reflective). Mercury is so close to Sun that solar winds and other stuff affect it as well. And it's smaller than Venus. Not a good comparison to Earth-like conditions.

I think with my weirdish head calculations, that Venus recieves twice the amount of Sun's energy than Earth. Energy, not temperature.

Found something to prove it:

Quote

The power of the Sun at the Earth, per square metre is called the solar constant and is approximately 1370 watts per square metre (W/m²). While earth is 150M km from the sun, Venus is only 108M km away, a ratio of 0.72.The solar constant at Venus is 1367/(0.72²) = 2,636 W/m².

https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/12/venusian-mysteries/

And just below it says:

Quote

The earth has an average albedo of about 0.3, meaning that 30% of the solar radiation is reflected. This is by clouds, by aerosols in the atmosphere, and by the surface of the earth. If Venus had the same albedo as the earth, the energy absorbed per m² of surface area would be, E = 2,636 * (1-0.3) / 4 = 461 W/m².

This value equates to an “effective radiating temperature” of 300K (27°C). This is nothing like the surface of Venus.

In any case, it turns out that Venus has a much higher albedo than the earth, with an albedo of 0.76 – meaning that 76% of the solar energy is reflected.

Redoing the calculation, E = 2,636 * (1-0.76) / 4 = 158 W/m² – which equates to an “effective radiating temperature” of 230K (-43°C)

So it seams that it proves @cometaryorbit claims, that if Venus has Earth atmosphere it would be around 30 degree C.

Edited January 9, 2023 by alder24

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

I will have to see if I can find where I saw the 93 F number.

52 minutes ago, alder24 said:

E = 2,636 * (1-0.3) / 4 = 461 W/m². This value equates to an “effective radiating temperature” of 300K (27°C)

Redoing the calculation, E = 2,636 * (1-0.76) / 4 = 158 W/m² – which equates to an “effective radiating temperature” of 230K (-43°C)

So it seems that it proves @cometaryorbit claims, that if Venus has Earth atmosphere it would be around 30 degree C.

But the 30% Albedo calculation doesn't account for earth's atmospheric affect on temperature, since the same calc (1367 * (1-0.3) / 4 = ) would give only ~239 W/m² and would far short of actual temperature at surface (about 14C). So, if 14C worth of solar energy is adjusted and regulated by the atmosphere to create the diverse temperatures and environments we experience - then a similar ratio appied to a similar atmosphere at the orbital location for Venus would get somewhere in the area of 77C as a daytime, equitorial temperature. 

But this is all tangential to the idea that the TFE orbit was < .75 AU, which still has no evidence other than a skewed artistic rendering. 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAGF

[alder24]

30 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

But the 30% Albedo calculation doesn't account for earth's atmospheric affect on temperature, since the same calc (1367 * (1-0.3) / 4 = ) would give only ~239 W/m² and would far short of actual temperature at surface (about 14C). So, if 14C worth of solar energy is adjusted and regulated by the atmosphere to create the diverse temperatures and environments we experience - then a similar ratio appied to a similar atmosphere at the orbital location for Venus would get somewhere in the area of 77C as a daytime, equitorial temperature. 

If you read further into article I linked, it then takes into account atmospheric composition, greenhouse gasses, how much solar radiation reaches the surface and how much atmospheric radiation affects the surface, radiation from the surface etc. I haven't read it all yet, I plan to as it looks interesting.

Quote

The surface of the earth receives an average of about 170 W/m² from solar energy (with an additional 70W/m² of solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere). The earth’s surface also receives an average of 324 W/m² of radiation from the atmosphere. So in total the earth’s surface receives about 490 W/m² (annual global average).

 

[cometaryorbit]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

But this is all tangential to the idea that the TFE orbit was < .75 AU, which still has no evidence other than a skewed artistic rendering. 

 

I disagree. When Vin removes the ash at the end of HoA, trees are bursting into flame. And it's only been a few hours, so there hasn't been time for the atmosphere to reach equilibrium with the new heat input (and hasn't been time for trees to die and fully dehydrate either). So that's got to be mostly direct solar heat input.

(Sazed's ascension scene also sounds like he'd be killed quickly by the noon intensity if he weren't protected by touching the Shards - IMO it implies something much quicker than just heatstroke or severe sunburn.)

I actually think that implies much more insolation than you'd realistically get at Venus's distance from the sun - especially since while we don't know what Vin did to Scadrial's axis orientation when she rotated the planet, it's unlikely that it just randomly ended up with the sun directly overhead at Luthadel.

At Venus' distance, the maximum insolation they'd get would be about double tropical noon Earth levels - maybe 2000 Watts per square meter - or if you assume that Vin didn't just clear the ash from the atmosphere but made it *unnaturally* transparent, it could be more, but still no more than 2500 Watts per square meter (about what you'd get with zero atmosphere).

But Luthadel wouldn't actually see those energy levels unless it were either exactly on the equator, or it were in the tropics and Vin happened to mess up the tilt so that particular day was the highest sun for that location.

(If the tilt was not changed, and so Luthadel remained at the high-but-not-arctic latitude it presumably was at before, outside midsummer it could get *less solar energy* at Venus' distance from the sun than an equatorial location on Earth gets at equinox noon.)

I think the description actually fits a Mercury-like distance or worse, but there's no way to make that compatible with even temporary habitability. So I think 0.6 AU or so is the most reasonable compromise.

Edited January 9, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[Treamayne]

4 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

and hasn't been time for trees to die and fully dehydrate either

The trees had been dying and dehydrating for months under the ashfall. . . 

. . . but let's just agree to disagree since there seems to be no way to confirm either of our theories until we get a WoB that says what AU distance the planet was under Rashek's orbit. 

[cometaryorbit]

Just now, Treamayne said:

The trees had been dying and dehydrating for months under the ashfall. . . 

. . . but let's just agree to disagree since there seems to be no way to confirm either of our theories until we get a WoB that says what AU distance the planet was under Rashek's orbit. 

Hmm, ok, that is possible yeah. And probably means we can avoid needing really extremely close (Mercury like) distances.

I still think to have the sun intensity rapidly fatal to humans you have to assume *both* that Scadrial is at least as close to the sun as Venus, and that Vin pushing the planet has messed up the tilt enough that Luthadel is now effectively in a relatively low latitude (neither by itself would be enough: a Scotland-like latitude, say, at Venus' distance from the sun wouldn't be nearly bad enough; neither would an equatorial latitude at 0.8-0.9 AU).

But yeah, there will probably never be a real answer. (I think this is a case of Era 1 being written before Brandon had his full team to work out these details.)